28 Oct 2025

How Driving Inclusivity Can Lead To Better Brand Engagement

Telling a compelling story via Facebook videos is an effective strategy for many big brands when it comes to social media engagement. This is as opposed to merely thinking about ways to announce or convey information about your brand. To tell a compelling story, many brands adopt the theme of “acceptance” to endear the masses to their brands.

According to a 2015 Neilsen consumer research:

“Results show that from the moment a video ad was viewed (even before one second), lift happened across ad recall, brand awareness, and purchase consideration. That means even people who never watched the video, but did see the impression, were still impacted by the ad.”

A Facebook video that tells a great story along with the themes of “acceptance” does emotionally engage your target audience, and this makes the recall of your brand easier in the future. In addition, a 2014 research by Dr. Karen Nelson-Field suggests that “any strong emotional pull—whether positive or negative—is twice as likely to be shared than content that provokes a weak emotional responses”. Humourous, shocking, and moving content can be used as tools via Facebook video marketing to associate your brand with certain emotions that will spur buying behavior later on.

Today, we feature four examples of acceptance along with the sub-themes of “gender, sexuality, and the human race” to inspire your Facebook video marketing campaign efforts. Check them out!

Case study 1: SK-II’s China’s “Leftover women”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irfd74z52Cw

What it is:

Cleverly crafted by Swedish marketing agency Forsman & Bodenfors, this SK-II video tells heart-wrenching stories about China’s “leftover women”, defined as women/daughters who are still unmarried after the age of 25. Women are portrayed to be “incomplete”, “unwanted” and “insecure” via this video simply because they are single.

The video focuses on the narratives of these ladies—mostly accomplished in their own rights—and the worries of their parents since these ladies are still “unmarried”, seen as a big problem in modern-day China. The audience’s focus is then brought to the “Marriage market” in Shanghai, where daughters are “bought” and “sold” for a price.

Later in the video, with SK-II’s intervention, parents are brought back to the same marriage market but instead of the usual scene, they now see beautiful pictures of their daughters with dignified reasons for why they are not married. There is then an emotional high as parents come to terms with their daughters’ decisions as they truly see how beautiful their daughters are, and the SK-II branding appears at the end of the video.

Practical implications:

In the East-Asian context, the phenomenon of unmarried ladies is also known as the Christmas Cake syndrome, where women “expire” after the 25th. Against this light, “feeling unwanted” is definitely a pain point felt by many affluent career ladies who are single, and SK-II’s brand message of “change destiny” definitely appeals to this group of single ladies with high disposable income. This video resonates with them, telling them that “it is okay, with SK-II you are still dignified.”

Is this successful storytelling with a powerful brand message? We definitely think so!

Results in numbers: The video achieved 11 Million views globally and sparked discussion in 35 countries.

Case Study 2: McDonald’s ad showing a young man “coming out” to his father

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqLFpbFiulY

What it is:

Produced by Leo Burnett in Taiwan, this is a 90 seconds McCafe advertisement depicting a story of a young Chinese man “coming out” to his father.

The scene opens in silence, and the anxious young gentleman wrote on his McCafe cup “I like guys”. After reading this, the father stood up in a huff and walked away, only to return after a while. He took the pen and wrote on the same cup “I –accept that you– like guys”.

Practical Implications:

In recent years, Taiwan has seen various progressive actions whereby celebrities and companies “coming out” to support the LBGT movement, including a heavily publicised MV by Jolin Tsai titled “We’re different, but so what”.

The idea behind this Facebook video campaign is to encourage more and more people to have heart-to-heart talks over a cup of coffee at McCafe. As with any provocative massage, this video has not just attracted praises from various human rights and LBGT groups, but also elicited strong protests from pro-family/ religious grassroots groups as well.

But strong brands always polarise, so we are not complaining!

Results in numbers: To date, the video has been viewed more than 2.1million times on Youtube.

Case Study 3: Shiseido “The Secret of High School Girls”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5n3Db6pMQ-8

What it is:

Directed by Shō Yanagisawa from Japan, this video left the audience shell-shocked when they discover that those pretty ladies they are looking at are actually pretty boys.

Practical Implications:

Androgny is definitely a strong and fascinating theme in Japan. The beauty of this video lies also in its subtlety and simplicity. The message of “Anyone can be cute with Shiseido makeup” is strong, and if we observe closely, the teacher in the video is actually holding onto an androgenous painting. What is real, and what isn’t…who knows?

Results in numbers: 9million views on Facebook

Case Study 4: Momondo—The DNA Journey

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyaEQEmt5ls

What it is:

The travel company Momondo partnered with the company AncestryDNA to test the DNA of 67 people, in the attempt to track their genetic ancestry.

The interviewers in the video asked the 67 people whether they have any existing prejudice towards any particular countries and most of their interviewees replied the affirmative. And then they realised that part of their heritage tree was from those parts of the world…

Practical Implications:

If only if human beings knew exactly where they came from, there would be much fewer conflicts on earth. By carrying out this advertisement, Momondo successfully conveyed the message that there is only one human race, and travelling does broaden all of our minds.

Racial and national prejudice is pretty unnecessary—so travel more and enjoy yourself as one human race!

Results in Numbers: 7million views on Youtube

Conclusion

As seen from the four videos, encouraging the masses to accept each other as one human race can be used as a compelling strategy by companies in social media engagement.

We hope you have enjoyed this post on how brands can create emotional and viral Facebook videos along with the themes of “acceptance” and great storytelling. Have a good day!